Echoes long unheard
by Arianna Scribbler
Summary: Wherein Les Amis are not muggles and their revolt has nothing to do with the King at Connected but not chronological Chapter three: wherein no one approves of the new history of magic
1. Past imperfect

Author's notes: This started out as a Marauders analogue and morphed into something of its own along the way. Chapters are non-chronological.

Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ belongs to JK Rowling. No profit is being made from this work.

* * *

Seeing him sends a physical pang shooting through Combeferre's body, a jolt of pain and longing that threatens to knock him off his feet. Only years of desperately won self-control keep him from throwing himself towards the man he once called his best friend; only hours of treating with known war criminals keep him from trying to kill him where he stands. He stares instead, one hand clenched around his wand, the other balled into a fist to keep from reaching out. Courfeyrac looks nothing like the bright young man Combeferre remembers, looks old and gaunt and exhausted. His hair falls unkempt and dirty around his shoulders, his clothes resemble little more than rags, his eyes hold nothing of their former life. It would be easy to mistake him for someone else entirely, and yet Combeferre knows him without any doubt, recognized him in an instant and without a moment's hesitation.

Courfeyrac too examines him, face a swirling maelstrom of emotions. He never could hide his feelings, Combeferre remembers, and a half-hysterical laugh bubbles up inside him. He shouldn't have come, he knows that, shouldn't have let his emotions override his reason and answered the letter, should have let the past stay dead. Yet here he stands, centimeters deep in the dust that coats the de Courfeyrac estate, unable to tear his eyes away from Courfeyrac's face.

"Ferre." Courfeyrac's voice is hoarse, worn down from screaming and misery, hesitant in a way Combeferre has never heard. He says no more than that, he who could never hold his tongue when they were young, and Combeferre's heart clenches again.

"Don't," he manages, forcing words through lips turned to lead. "Don't call me that."

Courfeyrac flinches, his whole body rippling backwards, a look of devastation flickering across his face only to be replaced by terrible resignation. He says nothing, eyes cast to the floor, and now Combeferre doesn't recognize him at all, doesn't see even a trace of his friend in this broken man, and it makes it easier to say what comes next. "How dare you?" he says, his voice trembling with an emotion he does not take the time to classify. "How _dare_ you write to me? How _dare_ you think I would want to see you, after…" He cannot finish that sentence, has not been able to finish that sentence for twelve years, may never be able to finish that sentence if he lives to be a hundred and twenty.

"It wasn't me." Courfeyrac raised his head again, hollow eyes boring into Combeferre, imploring him to listen, to withhold judgment, and Combeferre aches to strike the look from his face. "It wasn't me, I swear to you, I did not betray us that night, _Combeferre_."

Combeferre isn't listening, can't help hearing, cannot make himself speak. He cannot make himself deny either, not face to face with Courfeyrac again, not hearing the sincerity in the voice of a man who never could lie convincingly.

"Who?" he whispers, and the word is barely intelligible but Courfeyrac understands anyway, as Courfeyrac always understood, and looks away.

"I never learned," he says. "I was captured, I only heard what they accused me of doing after the fact."

Combeferre doesn't want to believe it, _doesn't_ believe it, but he knows too much of the old regime's ways, knows too much of the _new_ regime's ways, knows too much of war and of politics and of wizardkind to discount it. "Prove it," he says, and Courfeyrac relaxes ever so slightly because 'prove it' is not 'I don't believe you' and Courfeyrac has always known the difference, has known ever since they were eleven and swapping stories about their respective worlds and upbringings.

"We won," Courfeyrac says. "Their spy can't have known much, to only send them against our group. I'd have been able to tell them _much_ more than that."

It's absurd, it's nowhere near convincing, it's egotistical, it's so very _Courfeyrac_ and Combeferre can hardly breathe. Part of him wants to scream at the dismissal of that night, but a larger part, the one trained to override emotion and focus on fact as a sheer survival mechanism, that part is nodding and reexamining the situation and Combeferre still can't think the words but it all makes a sickening kind of sense.

He takes half a step forward, feet guided by impulse more than by reason, and Courfeyrac stays perfectly still, he who should always be moving. And then Combeferre can't hold back any longer and he launches himself at his friend, nearly knocking him over as he clings desperately to the rags covering Courfeyrac's back, and Courfeyrac clings back and together they shake with unbearable emotion, and in Combeferre something clicks back into place at last. He buries his face in Courfeyrac's gaunt shoulder, feels Courfeyrac's nails digging through his robes, gasps helplessly as he loses the battle against tears.

It takes a long time for them to separate, and even when they've raised their heads neither move to let go. Courfeyrac leans heavily on Combeferre, clutching at his robes as though Combeferre will vanish if he loses his grip. Combeferre, in his turn, cannot take his eyes off his friend, drinking in all the unfamiliar angles of his body and the shadows of his face that weren't there before. They slide to the floor in a tangle of limbs and clothing, Courfeyrac half on top of Combeferre as though they were still both seventeen and whole. They don't speak. Later there will be time for confessions and explanations and accusations, time to relearn their similarities and rediscover their differences and attempt to piece themselves back together in a way that can never fit quite as well as it did before. Later they will share stories and have nightmares and get very, _very_ drunk and nothing will be all right. For now they sit on the dusty floor of Courfeyrac's family home, trembling in each others' arms, and say nothing at all.


	2. A world made crimson

Author's note: I'd apologize, but I'm not particularly sorry.

Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ belongs to JK Rowling. No profit is being made from this work.

* * *

Enjolras is dead.

People are screaming and throwing curses and scrambling to find cover but Combeferre doesn't notice any of it because Enjolras is _dead_ and it wasn't supposed to go this way, wasn't _allowed_ to go this way, and Courfeyrac hasn't been seen in hours and everything is falling to pieces and Enjolras _isn't moving_. Combeferre's holding his wand in one hand and he clenches his fingers around it as tightly as they'll go, not feeling the pain as his fingernails dig into his palms and his muscles protest the strain, not feeling _anything_, and the world is turning red around the edges. Enjolras is lying in front of him, lying sprawled out where he fell, a fierce expression on his face that will never again smooth out or fill with passion or change at all because Enjolras is _dead_.

He doesn't notice the people around him until someone shoves him aside just as a bolt of puce-colored magic shatters the cobblestones a fraction of a centimeter from Enjolras' limp hand. A shard of stone flies into Enjolras' face and nicks his cheek, tearing rapidly cooling skin, and suddenly Combeferre's world snaps back into focus. He stands, ducks another curse, and narrows his eyes. The world is still red, will always be red, but he can see past it now, can see the black robes of the enemy down to the tiniest detail. Of its own accord his hand snaps up and a curse flies from his wand, cast wordlessly and aimed with deadly accuracy. A soldier falls before he can scream and Combeferre bares his teeth in a mockery of a smile. He stoops, brushing a hand down Enjolras' cheek and gently closing his eyes for the last time. He pries his friend's fingers open and plucks Enjolras' wand from his grip, pressing his own into its place and closing Enjolras' slender fingers around it. He lowers Enjolras' hand back to the ground and straightens, turning once again to face the oncoming soldiers. He raises Enjolras' wand and it feels right in his hand, feels eager to avenge its owner, feels _alive_. His friends back away as he advances on the enemy.

Combeferre doesn't lose himself in the fight. He throws curse after curse, calculating angles and aiming for weak spots with clinical detachment. He's studied the effects of all these curses, has written pages of essays on the most vulnerable parts of the human body, has practiced wand movements for hours, and now he puts his education into practice and before him the ranks of soldiers fall back. He ducks away from their curses and does not bother blocking, and in his hand the wand is warm. It is a hopeless fight, that he knows, but he will not betray his friend, his brother, by standing down. Combeferre has never been ruthless, has always valued life, but Enjolras' wand is hot in his hands and the world is still red and behind him on the pave stones Enjolras is _dead_. He keeps fighting.

Combeferre wakes in a cell, wandless and in chains. He thinks he is alone but he does not move, does not call out, does not test his hypothesis. His eyes adjust to the dark after a time but he barely notices, because he's _alive_ and it wasn't supposed to end like this. He was supposed to die on the streets, was supposed to perish for the cause, was supposed to join Enjolras. But Enjolras is _dead_ and Combeferre is _alive_ and he doesn't know how it could all have gone so very wrong.

Time passes. He drifts in and out of consciousness. Someone comes into the cell at one point but Combeferre doesn't speak, doesn't look up, doesn't move at all, and eventually they leave. He waits.

They set him free eventually, push him out of the cell into the sunlight, leave him with nothing but his wand, _Enjolras'_ wand, and a complicated tracking spell that takes him three days to remove. He doesn't speak, doesn't acknowledge them, doesn't look anywhere but straight ahead. People shy away from him on the street and he doesn't see them. He passes through the streets like a ghost, legs moving by rote until they take him to the apartment he shared with Enjolras. Combeferre stares at the door, hands trembling, and turns away.

He sleeps outside that night, layers of charms covering his body to protect it from the elements and his fellow human beings. In the morning he withdraws all his money from the bank and vanishes into muggle Paris.

When he next steps into the wizarding city even his friends do not recognize his eyes.


	3. Hygienic precautions

Author's note: Set long before the previous two chapters. (See endnotes for worldbuilding stuff.)

Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ is the property of JK Rowling. No money is being made from this work.

* * *

The palace of Beauxbatons stood in the middle of sumptuous grounds, meticulously maintained by a veritable army of house elves. Its elegantly sculpted gardens and exquisite fountains made an arresting picture, and upon passing through the delicately wrought gate a visitor would have been forbidden from thinking that the palace itself could only pale in comparison to its gardens. Yet, understandable as that impression might be, it could not have been further from reality – Beauxbatons palace more than rivaled the land upon which it sat. It rose from the earth like a creation made from spun sugar, towers soaring high and glinting in the sunlight, stonework gleaming and carvings so intricate they could only have been achieved by magic. Beauxbatons palace was the jewel in the crown of magical France, outshining other magical palaces and putting more modern constructions to shame.

Carefully maintained as the gardens were, it was not difficult to find secluded corners. Indeed, most students help that the original gardeners had anticipated generations of half-frenzied trysts and created hidden gardens entirely surrounded by tall hedges and ever-shifting mazes to accommodate them. Other students held that these were merely signs of the gardeners' desire to show off their magical genius, but they were generally dismissed as insufficiently romantic by their more cosmopolitan peers. Whatever the reason for their existence, these more private areas of the grounds were rife with illicit student activity, not all of it romantic in nature.

One garden in particular had become the chosen haunt of a small group of students who passed themselves off as a student group designed to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between wizarding and muggle culture. In truth this group had a much loftier goal, one which, if known by the administration, would have had its ringleaders promptly expelled and the others severely disciplined: the dissolution of the Statute of Secrecy and full integration of all beings into one harmonious society. They habitually met in a walled off garden behind the palace, one liberally festooned with ivy-covered benches and rogue begonias. Only those who already knew of its existence could find the garden's door, which served both as a security measure and distraction for the more academically minded of the group. (The charm had long ago been identified as a variant on the Fidelius, but its precise nature remained elusive. Combeferre, the group's most scholarly member, had dedicated countless hours attempting to solve the puzzle, ostensibly so that the charm could be applied elsewhere but mostly because he enjoyed the challenge.)

"It's an utter disgrace!" These words, spoken rather passionately, came from Courfeyrac, a well dressed youth whose face had reddened slightly in his outrage. He leaned against one of the walls, robes unbuttoned to reveal muggle clothing both fashionable and strictly against regulations. "They could have chosen to hire someone good, someone progressive. They had candidates, I know they did. Father told us about them in great detail – utterly forbidden, of course, but that's beside the point – and I know several equally qualified people applied for the post whose ideas about the future of magical education involved taking us _forwards_ as opposed to retreating into the dishonorable past. But no, we're stuck with a _traditionalist_. Did you know, he applied for a post at the Académie de la Sorcellerie before trying here? Not only do we have an académicien in our midst, we have a _rejected_ académicien!"

"Would you rather he have been a fully accredited member?" Combeferre asked from his place on one of the benches.

"Certainly I do!" Courfeyrac said, thumping the wall for emphasis. "If he were he wouldn't be _here_!"

"Here here," Bahorel called from the other side of the garden. Like Courfeyrac he lounged expertly, though Bahorel had chosen the oldest of the stone benches as his prop. "Let's make him rue the day he thought to apply for the post."

The others all nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm, even Combeferre and Feuilly, who accorded far more respect to the school as an institution than did the others. "He probably thinks we're innocent minds to be molded to his cause," said Bossuet, whom enrollment papers named Lesgle and whose signature read otherwise. His eyebrows had yet to regrow from an unfortunate potions accident the year before and his cloak was rather the worse for wear, but he grinned as he leaned back against the wall. "I almost pity the man, really. Just imagine his dismay when he finds that France's best and brightest have seen the light and rejected his shortsighted philosophy. Perhaps we should offer him spectacles as a gift of welcome."

Bahorel too grinned, though his expression was rather more fierce than Bossuet's. "I have my first class with him tomorrow. Perhaps I shall do him the honor of attending it after all."

"Leave some of him for the rest of us," Joly called. He sat cross-legged on the same bench as Bossuet, playing absently with his wand. From one of his pockets peeked a sachet of lavender, which he carried to ward off vapors and inquisitive pixies.

"The real question is who will actually teach us history," Feuilly cut in. He had chosen to sit next to Combeferre and now looked up from his book, forehead knit into a frown. "It's all very well for those of us who know better to educate ourselves from books and discount his teachings, but what of those who aren't as informed? There must be some way to spread the word that whatever comes out of his mouth is traditionalist propaganda."

"Perhaps a well timed howler?" Bahorel suggested, eyes gleaming. "To be delivered in front of the entire school denouncing his theories?" He grinned. "I've found them effective tools of humiliation, if not correction."

"And if they recognize your voice you'll be expelled for certain," Joly reminded him. Bahorel, who continuously skirted the edge of academic disgrace without ever quite giving the school the satisfaction of getting himself expelled, shrugged.

"Is there a finer way to go out?" he wanted to know.

"That won't change his teaching any," Joly insisted. "Save it for the end of the year at least."

Bahorel shuddered. "If I have to put up with that dullard for an entire year I fear I won't have the heart to make a howler," he said. "Surely we can dispose of him by Christmas at the latest."

"That doesn't solve the problem of the students," Feuilly reminded them. "They are owed an unbiased education."

"A two-pronged approach," Combeferre suggested. "We split our efforts between providing our peers with appropriate resources and showing our newest professor the extent of our esteem." He looked over at Enjolras, one eyebrow raised slightly. The blond student, who had been silent up until that point, nodded.

"Our first goal should be to make it clear to all how little we think of this appointment," he said gravely. As always when Enjolras spoke, all heads turned towards him. Even Jean Prouvaire, who hung upside down from the tree in the center of the garden, turned his head towards the ground to look at Enjolras. "We are not the only ones outraged; others will follow our example. And we will spread the word that any who want to learn the correct history of our country should seek it out themselves rather than expect it from him."

Courfeyrac was shaking his head. "Admirable, as usual," he said. "And I've no qualms with the idea in principle, but only the most exceptional students will do extra work of their own volition." He grinned, clearly putting himself firmly in the category of students reluctant to study more than strictly required.

"Your suggestion then?" Enjolras asked.

"Enlist the masses," Courfeyrac said. He moved from his spot by the wall to plant himself in front of Enjolras, eyes alight with mischief. "Make it clear that we won't accept such crimes against our education. And those who truly desire a balanced look at history can talk to Feuilly, who has that section of the library memorized already."

"How can you be sure they won't replace him with someone worse?" Combeferre wanted to know.

Courfeyrac smirked. "My father's on the school board," he reminded them. "I know who the other candidates were. There is no one worse."

"It's certainly worth a shot," Bossuet said. Joly, who had cast a diagnostic spell on himself and was now frowning at the results, nodded. "And even if it doesn't drive the demon from our midst it should at least be entertaining."

"I'll say," Bahorel agreed. "What's it to be then? Creatures in the classroom? Caricatures? Banners denouncing traditionalists at the top of their non-existent lungs?"

"Songs sweeping the student body," Joly suggested, having apparently decided that he wasn't quite sick enough to sit out on the fun. "Pamphlets airing his secrets."

"Certainly no one should attend class," Bossuet contributed.

"Inquisitions from those who can't afford to miss days," Joly said, grinning as Feuilly and Combeferre – the two least likely to voluntarily skip even the worst classes – nodded in unison.

"The ghosts could ensure he never sleeps easy," Prouvaire called down from his tree. "Mother Gaillemard's husband was killed in the cleanses of 1690. She'd be glad to help us spread anti-traditionalist sentiments."

"I wasn't aware you were on such good terms with Mother Gaillemard," Courfeyrac said, raising his eyebrows.

Prouvaire, his face already red from the strain of hanging upside down, ducked his head a bit. "She haunts the dungeons," he said by way of explanation. "You should speak to her sometime; her stories are positively bloodcurdling."

Courfeyrac, who was not a fan of the undead, shuddered slightly. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, looking back at Enjolras. "Your thoughts, oh esteemed leader?"

Enjolras, long used to Courfeyrac's honorifics, nodded. "We'll start as soon as possible," he said. "The sooner our school is rid of him the better." He looked around at his friends. "The more inventive the better, though be sure to make it clear that we object to his politics rather than his current profession. Any student might dislike a professor; let's show the school that our grievance is rather more serious."

Bahorel grinned his approval while Prouvaire straightened and shimmied nimbly down the tree. The two of them fell into a rather intense conversation, voices hushed – or as hushed as Bahorel ever got. Courfeyrac clasped Enjolras on the shoulder then went to join them, while Joly and Bossuet held their own conference. On the other side of the garden Combeferre and Feuilly had begun a conversation about which books to direct inquisitive students towards. Enjolras grinned, watching his friends. Their new professor wouldn't last a month, not with the student body turned against him. Pulling out a sheet of parchment from his bag, Enjolras conjured a muggle-style pencil and began to jot down his own plans for the unfortunate académicien.

* * *

Worldbuilding notes:

The Academie de la Sorcellerie is the magical equivilant of the Academie Francaise, but it's more influential. They control spells taught and created, as well as more generally upholding and enforcing more traditional forms of magic and, by extension, life. People who support the academie are traditionalists, while people who oppose it can be any number of things due to factionalism. The boys are Briardists, named after the faction's most influential member, and they support not only the dissolution of the academie but the integration of magical and muggle society as well as the inclusion of non-wizarding users of magic into society. They're more or less as radical as you can get, though within the group there are varying degrees of intensity.

After the creation of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, some French wizards decided that all muggles who knew about magic should be eliminated so as to ensure that the secret did not spread. (Wizards can be controlled by oaths; muggles, due to not having magic, aren't bound by magical oaths.) They were a minority group, but they did rather a lot of damage before they were finally disbanded and their leaders executed.

Enjolras, though from a respected pureblood family, knows what pencils are because Combeferre's both muggleborn and his best friend. He uses them both because traditionalists hate it and because they're more convenient than quill and ink.

Grantaire is in detention. He'll be brought up to speed later by Joly and Bossuet.


End file.
